I don't deserve credit, pretty much everything I've said has been paraphrased from @Mighty Alicorn Hunter who has posted about this a bit on the Tabletop Herds Discord with my little bits of my speculation put in.

Backers' Beta Tester

Demon.png in the backer wallpaper set also has runes, which may or may not be repeats of bits of the twitter announcement. Also emphasis on a few of the words in the text (Oleander me me She art thou my presence).

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I need to mention that after looking back to that picture, I realized that those demons in the background are also in this picture. This most likely means that they are, in fact, Fred. Perhaps some early art that didn't double up on his horn count. Sad, but most likely true.

Edit: Also just to update everyone, the runes in the background have been removed. The default background is seemingly reverted to how it was before they added the runes. Someone might wanna check that for hidden goodies.

I need to mention that after looking back to that picture, I realized that those demons in the background are also in this picture. This most likely means that they are, in fact, Fred. Perhaps some early art that didn't double up on his horn count. Sad, but most likely true.

Edit: Also just to update everyone, the runes in the background have been removed. The default background is seemingly reverted to how it was before they added the runes. Someone might wanna check that for hidden goodies.

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I already did if you go from page to page you see them for a second before the actual background comes up also I don't think its Fred bc if you look there is a very brawlic one and a very scrawny female looking one cleaning. (A housewife and a strong guy) the opposites... Don't think its a coincidence that Baphomet represents opposites.

Alright well, I'd be nice if the devs at least told me if I have been going on a wild goose chase as I've been doing this for the past day or so... I'm gonna go ahead and assume that I'm not... Now im almost certain this is wrong but the closest I've been so far, I have been using Phoenician runes and I basically puzzled this solution together,

There is a sort of wall or something preventing you from going in, You found an opening and went through, You found another wall, This time with people protecting it! You use weapons to fight them off and someone helps you or you help someone.

Now you can take this and say that the wall = fence, the broken gateway = opening, the other wall = fence, people protecting it = defense, fishhook = weapons, hand = help of some sort.

I don't know much about the lore but it might be that Oleander was trying to access the unicornomicon (or whatever book FHTNG controls/lives in) and she found some type of gateway that was open and allowed her to enter the unicornomicon. She encountered another type of block with spirits or magic stopping her from continuing, she tries to fight and go past this "guardian" of sorts and FHTNG helps her out. So this might be that FHTNG is locked inside of the unicornomicon and Oleander was trying to free him from the book... or something like that...

Now I know that I'm going WAY outside the box but my sleep-deprived brain wants a solution until tomorrow and I think this satisfies it... #FanLore?

So @Redness basically completely destroyed my entire theory by explaining that the foenecians (Sounds like Phoenician doesn't it...) lives were threatened daily by predators until The Bearded Prophet locked them away in a portal she called THE HOLD, they started coming back and explained that The Bearded Prophet's magic is finally wearing thin. They have broken her lock and will soon break the lock to Foenum. Champions are chosen from every nation and they have to go face The Devourer and save the world. These champions have to find the Enchanted Key and relock the portals.

So now let's go back and rewrite that FanLore real quick.

The portals are the fences since they are locked and fences prevent you from going in or out of places. The broken gateway is the broken lock on the side of THE HOLD, the defense is the champions because they are the last line of defense for Foenum from the Predators. The fishhook is used to find fish or to reel things in, OR WHAT WE ARE GONNA SAY is that they have to find the key so they go "fishing" for it, then the hand represents that they either help each other or they help Foenum.

I'm gonna stop for a second to say that I actually despise @Redness for deciding to leave this bit out when I specifically asked him multiple times if there is ANYTHING and I mean ANYTHING in the lore that would be helpful in any way shape or form... BUT NO He only remembers when he reads the story I made...

Back to the easter egg, I think that this is a lot closer to the actual answer than my original bit since I actually have lore to back up my claim, but it probably doesn't matter... it's probably just something that I'm missing and am too stupid to realize and the devs are laughing at while reading this thread... do I care? NOPE because I love lore probably why I'm gonna buy this game to be honest...

P.S. I know that 3 of the runes aren't a perfect match but its as close as I could find tonight the Defense symbol might mean wholeness which would say that the locks were made whole again but idk. Give me feebdack! Let me know what you guys think! We can solve this together

Phoenician is written from right to left. With a stretch of imagination it could mean that:
Hand: Someone or something offers a thing of value.
Fishhook: Someone else (Oleander?) gets tricked into believing the offer.
Defense: Victim learns about The Hold.
Fence: The Hold acts as a fence, keeping predators away.
Broken Gateway: Victim breaks the lock, releasing the predators, either willingly or otherwise.
Second fence: I dunno, maybe cities start to wall up in preparation, remember how in the first trailer the snowy pixel lobby had great walls?

Now that we are talking about phoenicians I just remembered that I once thought that "Fenicia" would be a cute name for a girl lmao

Backers' Beta Tester

Noticeable? No, besides that the background count doubled at some point. It was originally 4 excluding the blank/rune one, now it's 8. Though, I think you guys started after the backgrounds increased, so that's probably not a surprise.

Backers' Beta Tester

Noticeable? No, besides that the background count doubled at some point. It was originally 4 excluding the blank/rune one, now it's 8. Though, I think you guys started after the backgrounds increased, so that's probably not a surprise.

Backers' Beta Tester

The dots in the runes are throwing me off. There's no runic alphabet that I can find that has double dots on some characters. A few sources mention a double-dot character that goes between characters to break up words, but the ones in the (former) background are clearly part of the character, not between them.

If you ignore the dots, each character can be found in some runic alphabet or another - except maybe the far-right character - but not all in the same alphabet! This makes me think it might have just been designed to look rune-ish without actually being a reference to anything. Or, maybe the devs are inventing their own "Fœnecian" script. That'd be fun.

Backers' Beta Tester

Me and redness noticed that they removed the runes some time last night around 1 am ish, and we did start before they added so many more backgrounds. Them removing the runes makes me think that it is something that we can find.

Backers' Beta Tester

Me and redness noticed that they removed the runes some time last night around 1 am ish, and we did start before they added so many more backgrounds. Them removing the runes makes me think that it is something that we can find.

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That, or they removed them because it's nothing and we're all going on a wild goose chase. xD

Is there a 6 letter word in the lore that has the same letter either 1st and 3rd or 4th and 6th?

Still, the order in which the runes appear seems to be arbitrary, we know that in the Book of Lore, Paprika is number 4, and Pom is number 5, maybe they are reversed and they hint the order in which the story mode will be released?

One of the numbers is 1903, it could be a year, but I dont think so, because it would be too obvious. Assuming it is a year, Wikipedia has a page of "things that happened", I guess that all of this would be paranormal related and whatnot, so we have two notable births.
Alexander Imich: Parapsychologist, oldest living man for a time.
John Scarne: Magician.

I'll try to look for more info, maybe tomorrow.

Or maybe we should try another approach, how can we use Occam's razor in all this?

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One of the numbers is 1903, it could be a year, but I dont think so, because it would be too obvious. Assuming it is a year, Wikipedia has a page of "things that happened", I guess that all of this would be paranormal related and whatnot, so we have two notable births.
Alexander Imich: Parapsychologist, oldest living man for a time.
John Scarne: Magician.

I'll try to look for more info, maybe tomorrow.

Or maybe we should try another approach, how can we use Occam's razor in all this?

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We don't use Occam's razor for this because the most extreme use of Occam's razor here would be that the runes don't mean anything and were just put there to allude to dark magical texts
also curious on where you found 1903

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We don't use Occam's razor for this because the most extreme use of Occam's razor here would be that the runes don't mean anything and were just put there to allude to dark magical texts
also curious on where you found 1903

If all this is just a wild goose chase, I think Mane6 would tell us, but only after Halloween. Just so they could say "Gotcha, it was nothing all along!"
But I don't believe this is the case for several reasons (the runes being removed, Anukan's post, etc). I do wonder if they'll just tell us the answer after Halloween if it isn't cracked by then, though.

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Kinda just brute-forcing, I looked at words that fit the pattern of the runes (ABACDE), and the most promising outcomes (in my opinion) were "Awaken" and "Ninety". "Awaken" could just be referencing Oleander finding the book or something, and "Ninety" could be days, like ninety days from somewhen.

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Kinda just brute-forcing, I looked at words that fit the pattern of the runes (ABACDE), and the most promising outcomes (in my opinion) were "Awaken" and "Ninety". "Awaken" could just be referencing Oleander finding the book or something, and "Ninety" could be days, like ninety days from somewhen.